Tried installing XP onto external HDD - BSOD [Solved]

R3MaK3R

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Oct 3, 2009
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I recently attempted to dual boot XP but instead of on the same hard drive i installed it onto a seperate external hard drive. I went through the setup and installed it onto my external hard drive.

The problem i face now is that my computer starts up fine, but when it gets to the XP loading screen it loads for about 4-5 seconds then freezes and goes intothe blue screen of death. it says it has detected a error or something.

My external hard drive is just a sata hard drive in an enclosure.

Now i have a computer that is not working.

Please help!
 

vibe

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The XP install was probably lacking the drivers for your external disk - durin XP install there is an option to "Press f6 to load drivers" it's here where yu would load raid or disk drivers for the external drive from a floppy drive.

Another option is to look at "slipstreaing" an install disk for xp - this is where you burn a copy of the XP install disk and add the drivers to the image removing the need to upload from floppy drive.
 

roonj

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Well based on the last post, normal again, unplug the external drive assuming it was just a data drive previously. See if you can boot into safe mode and do a system restore. If you can't get into safe mode use system installation disk CD/DVD and attempt restore from there. Sounds like you meant 2 seperate installs of XP right?
 

R3MaK3R

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I have a copy of Vista on my internal hard drive which came with the computer so i have no discs, and i have an XP CD which i used to install onto my external hard drive. So i can't reinstall vista.

I wanted to try putting both of my hard drives internal but unfortunenatly i can't since i only have 1 sata slot inside my computer. (becuase my graphics is friggin to big and covers the other 3 ports). Is there such a thing that converts 1 sata port to 2 sata ports?

I have come up for a temporary solution for now but all i've done is make my external hdd internal and my internal hdd external(swapped them around), and installed XP onto it with no problems. But i can no longer use vista.



 

howardp6

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You should never install an older version of Windows over a newer version even on a separate drive and expect the newer version to be able to be used. The boot loader and other files and the file system itself may not be compatible. Next time read before you do. The Microsoft website and this website has cou8ld have provided you with that informatiom. If you had the install DVD you could have used it to recover the Vista installation. Did you have a recovery partition on your old hard drive, if you did you may be able to recreate the partition. You should copy any of the files on the original drive if your do this, since in recreating the partition all files will be lost. Some SATA cables have a ninety degree plug, which allow them to be used, where the SATA ports may be otherwise blocked.
 

R3MaK3R

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Sorry i haven't updated my post for awhile, but i have got my computer back to vista like last week.

All i did was get Vista Boot Pro and have both hard drives plugged into my computer so the program would detect two OS's. Then ran the vista boot thing. Vista does not work quite yet. Then i swapped my hard drives again so my vista hard drive was internal and back to normal. Then it worked.

Thanks you everyone for your help.
 

jsulliva12

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I'm in the same boat well.
Ihave an older tuffbook it didnt come with the harddrive or sleeve witch couldnt find cheeper then 1$$.00 or so and moneys tight. In my case the computer is a laptop same with the external hard drive <40gb WesternD>.
the only part I am changing is the style how it sends the info
help if you can mostly for fun if i get it to work my next plan would install in work truck.
that i can do clean power and screen undre glass as lid to filling system.

Thanks
josh
 

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